Incredibly cool site that allows you to track international flights in real time on a map.

Click to enlarge

Also gives on time arrival performance, weather delays, even the arrival and departure gates at the airport. This website covers airports all over the world so play with it and see how it can help you.

The most important thing you can do when you travel by air: think of all the things that can go wrong and have a contingency plan in your mind. For instance, if the airline loses your luggage, have a change of clothes in your carry-on. Even better yet, you should not have any checked luggage.

Remember our rule: Lay out all the clothes you have for your trip, and take only HALF of it.

This is a major reason why people don’t take time off. They feel the travel will make it harder for them to get a job when they come back. Far from it. Many say travel enhances their resume because it shows adaptability, resourcefulness and an engaging, outgoing nature.

Keep your nose clean when you travel folks. Drugs especially will get you thrown in jail, or even facing the death penalty in certain countries. There is a show on National Geographic called “Locked Up Abroad”. It will scare you straight if you even have a thought of doing something foolish overseas.

With that said, thousands of people travel every year without any interaction with law enforcement (myself included). Best thing to do: Don’t accept a package to deliver someplace else for money or any other reason.

What you should have in your carry-on to take care of the minor medical situations that will happen when traveling. Cipro for the stomach bugs is vital (by prescription) and antibacterial wipes are not included in this list.

Huge, huge market for English teachers overseas that I talked about before. This article focuses on Europe, but Asia, Africa and South America all need English teachers. As much as English speakers worry about speaking the local language when they travel, English is the global de facto language, even if Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people worldwide.

@Dave and DebThe medicine cabinet list has a good foundation of the basics and you can add/delete as needed. Lots of interesting notes in travel and at least one should catch everyone’s attention when reading through them.